It is not only the 550 British athletes targeting a once-in-a-lifetime performance on whom the pressure is increasing as the London Olympics move within touching distance.

For the British Olympic Association chief executive, Andy Hunt, who will also act as chef de mission in London despite never having fulfilled the position at a summer Games before, the rhetoric must soon give way to action.

He says the coming month is the most critical for the organisation prior to the Games, at which it will be responsible for organising and supporting the British athletes whose performances will go a long way to colouring perceptions of the success of the London Olympics.

Not only must the BOA handle the emotive fallout from the court of arbitration for sport's ruling on whether its lifetime doping ban should stay but it must put the final touches to plans that Hunt claims are "many multiples" greater in their "breadth and complexity" than ever before.

But Hunt, appointed from outside sport in 2008 by the BOA chairman, Lord Moynihan, to lead an overhaul of the organisation as part of a bid to enhance its role and its income off the back of a home Games, is also keen to manage expectations. He says it would be "ludicrous" and "crazy" to regard anything below fourth place in the medal table as a failure this summer.

UK Sport, the funding agency that invests up to £143m a year of exchequer and lottery money in Olympic sport, has long claimed that fourth in the medal table – equalling Beijing's position – is a hard and fast target. But the BOA prefers to call it an aspiration.

"It's going to be hard. I truly believe we've got the ability to deliver it if everything goes right. But sport isn't an exact science," says Hunt.

The BOA's projections based on last year have Team GB in sixth position but increased momentum and the likelihood of converting silvers to golds and fourth places to medals gives Hunt confidence. He is also heartened by the reaction of performers to the home crowd at the string of test events.

"It is not a hard medal target because, if we were to do that, there is a possibility we could deliver on more medals in more sports yet maybe – through the achievement of other nations – finish marginally in fifth or sixth position and be perceived as having failed," he says. "That would be ludicrous. If we end up with more medals and create a whole bunch of new role models, to judge we had failed would be crazy. The success of the Games is more than just achieving fourth place."

The BOA will spend £13m sending the biggest ever British team of athletes, 450 staff and 300 volunteers to the Games. Hunt says there is no performance benefit to setting a definitive medal table target, sticking instead to the mantra of "more medals in more sports than in over a century".

Over the next month the BOA must step up its fund-raising efforts as well as putting the final touches to Games-time plans that effectively begin with the opening of its holding camp in Loughborough in June.

Hunt says the pre-Games planning process has been more intense than ever, with every minute detail considered from every angle. But some fear the BOA's hands-on approach could help rather than hinder sports that have their own finely honed support systems in place. Hunt says the opposite is true and that the BOA is more hand in glove with the sports than ever before.

"What's really changed is the level of insight and understanding we have. The relationship with sports is just on another planet from the past," he says. "We've had a policy from a year out of no new faces. The Games is not a time to introduce new interventions or work with new people."

The BOA's finances have long been the subject of intense scrutiny as it has moved to swish West End offices and expanded its remit and wage bill in an attempt to position itself to take advantage of the point at which it will regain control of the Olympic brand from London 2012 organisers.

Hunt said it would be able to deliver on its ambitious Games-time plans, highlighting reserves of £2.8m that could be used in extremis, but admitted that fund-raising between now and the opening ceremony – including the sale of one million supporters' scarves through Next and a Royal Albert Hall event featuring Gary Barlow – remained crucial.

Hemlines and bottom lines

It has been hemlines rather than the bottom line that has been concerning Hunt in recent weeks, in the face of criticism of the Stella McCartney-designed Team GB kit. In answer to those who bemoan the lack of red, he says they wanted to avoid a "hackneyed use of the Union Jack" and that other recent kits have been either white or blue. "We wanted something different, something unique. I'm really pleased with it, fashion is very subjective," he says.

Alan Partridge-esque fashion analysis aside, part of Hunt's mission has been to broaden the BOA's remit beyond its traditional role of "tracksuits and travel". But he reveals that discussion of what the BOA's role should be after the Games – potentially including a broader remit in coaching and education – has been "parked" until after the London closing ceremony.

Those talks will now be aligned with postponed negotiations over the merger of UK Sport and Sport England, due to resume in the autumn, and the broader debate about the future of British sports administration from the elite to the grass roots.

As such, a temporary truce has been called in the internecine turf wars among those responsible for British sport. Intriguingly Hunt does not rule out making a potentially controversial pitch for public money to fund some of the BOA's ambitions after the Games – particularly some of the responsibilities it may inherit from the organising committee.

"Potentially looking at where exchequer or lottery funding may play makes eminent sense and I don't think in any way compromises our position as being an independent voice of British sport for our members."

He says conversations with potential post-Games sponsors are progressing well but admits it is a tough market. Hunt defends his dual role as chief executive and chef de mission by saying it would be very difficult to do it differently.

"The complexity and the integration of what we need to deliver, it would have been very hard to do it any other way. Everyone will judge the success or not of this but I do think it has absolutely been the right model for a home Games environment," he says. "You can take on a broad scope and responsibility as long as you've got the right people around you."

They include eight "sports engagement managers" who are embedded with the governing bodies and four deputy chefs de mission, including Sir Clive Woodward. While outsiders have frequently questioned his highly paid role, Hunt says Woodward's part in bringing the team together will be key at Games time.

"Clive has done a great job, trying to find that common golden thread that brings together 39 different disciplines with one binding, culture, ethos and underpinned by one set of guidelines," he says.

Although most of the major sports are staging their pre-Games training camps elsewhere, every Team GB athlete will pass through the BOA holding camp at Loughborough at some point. Hunt says that will be an important part of bringing a disparate group of 26 sports together under a "One Team GB" banner and reinforcing messages around the particular pros and cons of competing at home.

"When we bring everyone through Loughborough, we'll have another 'moment' to bring it home. A home Games is an incredible moment in all our lives and we want to make it very special," he says.

Before the Team GB rabble-rousing process begins in earnest ahead of the Olympic torch arriving on these shores in mid-May, and before they get down to the detailed business of overseeing the Loughborough holding camp in June, there is the small matter of the CAS ruling to consider.

The BOA is challenging the World Anti-Doping Agency's decision to find the BOA's lifetime ban for drug cheats non-compliant with its universal code. Most experts expect the decision, due later this month, to go in Wada's favour, opening the door for the sprinter Dwain Chambers and the cyclist David Millar to compete for Team GB.

Like Moynihan Hunt says they will be welcomed into the fold if the BOA is forced to drop its lifetime ban, which Wada argues is out of step with rules in the rest of the world and amounts to an "additional sanction".

"If we were to lose, we will absolutely embrace any athletes that are able to compete as a result of the bylaw potentially falling away. We will set the tone. I hope that by setting the leadership tone in that way it will be reflected by the team."

The stakes will be high this summer, for the BOA and for Hunt. But he says he is not feeling the pressure of combining a suit and a tracksuit.

"We know what we need to do. This is the real culmination of everything we have planned," he says.